L-Acoustics Hangs At The Hollywood Bowl

Los Angeles (April 20, 2007)--Three years ago, the Hollywood Bowl completely rebuilt its band shell and installed a full L-Acoustics amplifier and loudspeaker system. Now, having created a more detailed model of the facility in Soundvision, L-Acoustics' realtime 3D acoustical modeling software, the venue's audio crew is tweaking the system.

Los Angeles (April 20, 2007)--Three years ago, the Hollywood Bowl completely rebuilt its band shell and installed a full L-Acoustics amplifier and loudspeaker system. Now, having created a more detailed model of the facility in Soundvision, L-Acoustics' realtime 3D acoustical modeling software, the venue's audio crew is tweaking the system. A L-Acoustics line array gets revamped at the Hollywood Bowl.According to Fred Vogler, sound designer for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which has called the Hollywood Bowl its summer home since 1922, "Paul Freudenberg (L-Acoustics vice president of sales and marketing) and I walked around and literally mapped the entire seating arrangement to the square foot last year, which gave us a more accurate depiction of the physical space in Soundvision and enabled us to tailor the system's coverage even more precisely than ever before."

As a result, Vogler and Freudenberg altered the box count on the main left and right P.A. hangs, which now comprise eight V-Dosc at the top, eight SB218 subs in the middle, and another 10 V-Dosc with a four dV-Dosc downfill tail below. The revised box count also came with an increase in LA48a amplifiers supplied by North Hollywood-based US Audio & Lighting, which also assisted with the installation.

"The guest mix position here at the Bowl is located 95 feet from the stage, as opposed to our fixed FOH position, which is 220 feet back," said Vogler. "With so many tours coming through, the idea behind changing the box counts was to deliver a little more impact to the lower seating area via the larger V-Dosc boxes, as opposed to the smaller dV-Dosc. We also aimed the crossover point between the upper and lower arrays farther back behind the mix position. It evened out the coverage a little more and gave us a more accurate depiction of what the engineers and audience were hearing down closer to the stage."

Other system revisions included removing the three 112XT loudspeakers that were originally flown off the catwalk and 17-enclosure dV-DOSC center array hung from the peak of the proscenium, replacing them with a mini center array of nine dV-DOSC flown from the leading arc of the 'halo' over the stage.